


This Insubstantial Pageant

by Silvestria



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Gen, all these unanswerable questions..., does it mean something?, has the author been reading too much Jung and Campbell?, is it prophetic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 11:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7975180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvestria/pseuds/Silvestria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the London season of 1811, Viola Fitzgerald has a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Insubstantial Pageant

_Viola dreamed._  
  
She found herself in the fully realised Medieval world of a jousting tournament. The scene before her was reminiscent of the pencil illustrations in the Medieval romances she had poured over when a very little child in her father's library, only this scene was displayed in full colour, not to mention with all the appropriate sounds and smells that would naturally accompany such a scene.  
  
She was sitting on a throne in a box in the middle of the spectators' gallery. On her left were three waiting women, all sewing – one on a wheel, one with a spindle, and the third by hand. She was watching the jousters. Knight after knight in full armour charged from opposite ends of the field and met in the middle with a great clash of their lances. One would fall from his horse and as soon as that would happen the pair would be instantly replaced by new competitors, who were identical to the ones who had just fought except in the small details of their colours and their horses. Viola wondered how the old pairings managed to leave the field so quickly but was not altogether bothered by this apparent illogicality.  
  
As she watched she began to be aware of a commentary and she turned to her right to discover a minstrel standing just behind her chair, singing a song of the jousts as they took place. He was a spry fellow with curly hair, blue eyes and wore a jaunty hat with a bell on it. He accompanied himself with a lyre.  
  
She turned back to the competition, resting her chin on her hand and her elbow on the arm of her throne. She realised that she had been watching it for hours and despite the lively music of the minstrel was becoming rather bored. She turned to him and asked, “When will they stop? This constant duelling is tedious,” because she knew instictively that he was the right person to ask.  
  
The minstrel did not stop playing the lyre and when he spoke to her Viola understood that he was speaking in verse, in rhyming couplets, even if his actual words were ordinary prose.  
  
“They'll stop when one of them wins,” replied the minstrel, with a little bow to her.  
  
“Well, when will that be?”  
  
“When you choose a winner.”  
  
“Oh.” Viola thought about this. “How do I do that?”  
  
“You give the one you favour your crown, of course, Princess.”  
  
She reached her hands up to her head and was not surprised to discover that she was wearing a crown. She tried to take it off but it seemed stuck to her head. She frowned and pulled harder.  
  
“It won't come off until you've picked your winner,” volunteered the minstrel helpfully.  
  
This was annoying. She settled back to watch the performers but as much as she tried to concentrate, her eyes kept being drawn to a knight standing opposite her who was not taking part in the competition. His visor was down like the other knights and she could not see his features but every time she tried to look back at the jousts, her eyes were drawn back to him. It was very frustrating.  
  
“Him. I want him to win!”  
  
“Who, Princess?”  
  
She pointed to the lone knight and the minstrel laughed.  
  
“Oh, Princess, he can't win!”  
  
Viola felt her irritation rise. “Why not? I told you. I want him to win!”  
  
“Ah, you see, Princess, he is not in the competition, and a man who is not in the competition cannot therefore win the competition!” The minstrel sounded smug.  
  
“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! Who made up those rules?”  
  
“You did, Princess!”  
  
“Well, I'll change them then.”  
  
She reached for her crown and pulled. It was still stuck. Viola felt a rising sense of panic sieze her. She pulled harder. “I can't get it off!” she cried.  
  
“You're very good at rule-making, Princess,” sang the minstrel. His song sounded like a mockery now: cruel and impersonal. She wanted him to stop, to shut up. “You'll never get it off now!”  
  
“Help me!” she cried. “Help me get the crown off!”  
  
But he just kept playing the lyre calm as could be. She hated him. She hated his stupid lyre. More than that, she hated his indifference.  
  
She turned to the three waiting women. “Ladies, can't you see I need help? Please, get this crown off!”  
  
But they did not even look at her, and only continued to sew and weave, their faces blank of all expression.  
  
She kept wrenching at the crown, standing up and tugging, trying to use her throne as an anchor. It felt fused to her head and hurt every time she tugged. She could still see the knight across from her but he seemed to be getting smaller and smaller as everything faded into insignifance compared to the importance of getting the crown off her head.  
  
Suddenly with a sharp, blinding burst of pain the crown came off and when Viola held it in her hand it was burning hot. She was astonished and horrified to discover that instead of the gold she had expected to see, it was made out of prickly thorns intermingled with bright red exotic flowers. It repulsed and fascinated her in equal measure. She couldn't hold it longer than a second, however, so she threw it hard away from her right at the minstrel. It hit his lyre and there was a great crack that seemed to rend the world in two.  
  
She was lying in long grass. She was naked. Standing a few feet away was the minstrel, still fully clothed right up to the tinkling bell on his hat. He was holding his lyre, split cleaning down the middle with a jagged cut like a lightening bolt. He did not seem at all bothered by her nakedness, but she felt embarrassed and tried to cover herself in the grass.  
  
“I tried to warn you of what would happen,” the minstrel said. He sounded sad. “And now you've broken my lyre.”  
  
“I'm sorry about that,” she said, even if a few minutes before she had been wishing for exactly that. “I didn't mean to hit you.”  
  
They were silent and Viola sat up and looked around for a tree with leaves or something she could use to cover her body but the field stretched away in all directions with not a single tree or living plant to see. The enormity of her actions hit her but she found that she could not feel too bad about it, not out here in this silent field with no sound except for the warm breeze on her skin... Nevertheless, she felt sure she had done something wrong or rather that she ought to feel she had.  
  
“I shouldn't have done that, should I?”  
  
The minstrel held one half of his broken instrument in each hand and shrugged at her with half a smile.  
  
“Can we fix it?”  
  
“We? Princess, I am the singer of song, the writer of right, the beguiler of guile! What you dare, I dance. What you reason, I rhyme...”  
  
He was getting fainter. Viola struggled to hear him. She did not understand. Was he saying they could make it right together or was he saying the opposite? If only she could be sure of what he meant! Even after she broke his lyre he still spoke in verse! It was all blurring. All incomprehensible.  
  
All gone.


End file.
